A Start: Cleaning Windows.

June Cleaning: First Report

There's nothing quite like clean windows to say

"Summer is here!"


Of course, there's nothing quite so much like filthy windows to say:

"Ick!"

Windows are a bit complicated at our house. The ones at the front, the living room and dining room windows are lovely.  Each window is in three parts: the long narrow bits on each side open to let in breezes.

These are simple. I vacuum the screens and wash the windows. Done.

The windows at the back of the house, though, (and one kitchen window on the East side) are a different story. They are old double hung, one over one up and down sliding single paned windows. We put up storm windows in the fall and screens in the spring. I made the screens.

They are held in the window frame by these little wing nuts.

I suppose I should paint the wood spacers but I never think of it.

It takes a few days to get them done, sometimes, even, a few weeks. This year, it took us about three weeks to get the screens up. The nights were chilly, so as I was closing the windows in the evenings anyway, there didn't seem to be a rush!

It gave me time to wash the window sills.

Here is the back of the house with the ground floor screens in.

See the two windows in the second story? (The left is the stairwell landing and the right is the 1/2 bathroom). Both of them still have the storm windows in. (That's why the moldings look thicker.) Neither of them have screens.

So far, both my husband and I have been too chicken to go up there and change out the windows, anyway! But making screens for them is on the list!

The Tchotchke Challenge

The Nester has thrown the gauntlet: pack away your accessories for 30 days! Get them gone from all your surfaces.

When the Nester first proposed the challenge, I figured I wouldn't bother participating. I don't have too many accessories. I'm not addicted to my pretty things. I don't need to do this.

But I thought about it a bit too much, wondering what it would be like to live with nothing but the useful about me.

So, today, after grocery shopping, I started clearing.

The first challenge, of course, is to identify an accessory. What is it, exactly?

Some things are easy. Mostly everything here, for example.

And here.

But what about the kids' artwork? Projects from shop class?

The grasshopper on wheels is my son's project from shop class. My daughter made the bowl on the shelf below at a ceramics shop. (It holds my stretchie bands for my workouts.)

I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that if the item was on the wall, it could stay. Anything either leaning, or on a stand, that would be taken down.

If it was decorative but it held something useful (and ugly) it could also stay. I'm just being lazy, really. I didn't want to have to try and find homes for these things.

But that is part of my decorating philosophy, such as it is. Something beautiful is nice, but it is better if it can also be useful. I like things to earn their keep.

And what about this?

These are our dishes. We use them multiple times a day. I am not putting them back in the cupboard. The idea is not to live the month of June without beauty. It is not to un-decorate, but to de-accessorize; to refresh our eyes, not make them sad.

After I filled the laundry basket for the third time, I figured this challenge just may be a good idea after all.

 

 

 There are weird gaps in my house and I don't promise not to shuffle things around. (Actually, I started already.)

The basket holds sewing projects in progress.

But, so far, this feels good. Let's see what happens.

June: Goals (The Gargantuan List)

In spite of the fact that I wasn't able to finish Anti-procrastination Project month the way I would have liked, I am thrilled I got so much done!

Because of that, I am going to approach June in much the same way. That means I am going to commit to getting a certain number of projects done and blog about them every week. They fall into three broad categories: cleaning, organizing and decorating.

A lot of my annual and semi-annual cleaning chores haven't been done, yet. I usually do them as part of my "Spring Cleaning" but I was too distracted with all the organizing I was doing earlier this year. So, this month I want to catch up.

I've made a huge list of all the things I want to get done: some of them will be done this month, some of them will take longer. Some of them depend on how much extra money we will have.

But, a list is a great way to keep track of my plans, so I am going to share it here and link back when the project is done. I plan to blog about at least one or two projects in each category every week: so I am committing to three posts a week. Posting daily was a real grind, but a regular schedule keeps me chugging along and getting things done. It works for me!

So, here's the gargantuan, throw everything at the wall, big brain dump list.

Cleaning:

Wash windows and window sills, and vacuum screens in the kitchen, downstairs bathroom, living room and dining room. Done: June 6. Cleaning Windows: A Start

Wash curtains in the kitchen. Done!

Clean the oven, oven racks and stove top.
Clean the floor under the oven.

Clean the floor under the fridge.
Vacuum the fridge coils.

Clean the mail box and house numbers.

Clean the screen doors, both front and back.
Clean both exterior doors, front and back.

Clean the tiles in the tub and shower surround.

Dust all the bookshelves. Living room, dining room, upstairs hallway, bedroom.

Vacuum the bedroom floor--especially under the bed and couch! done.
Vacuum our mattress.

Wash the table top in the laundry room.
Wash the shelves.
Clean the machines.

Clean the pantry shelves.

Organizing:

Empty 2 boxes of photos
Empty the memorabilia box.
Re-label scrapbook patterned paper.
Purge and create a home for 8 1/2 x 11 paper.
Create a home for odd sized photos.

Organize the white cabinet in the bathroom.

Organize the linen closet upstairs.

Switch out the summer and winter clothing.
Clear out the nightstands in the master bedroom. Done! June Challenge: Organizing
Clean out my husband's side of the closet.

Find a home for the winter sheets on the shelves in the laundry room.

Organize the pantry into zones.

Decorating:

Kitchen:

Touch up blue chairs with paint. Re-painted in navy. December 2014
Refinish top of kitchen table. (If possible. It may not be.) Done: October 2014

Dining room/Home Office:

Fix the IKEA non lights on top of the shelf. fixed, but not blogged.

Living Room:

Finish sewing white drapes and putting in pleater tape.
Finish sewing couch slip cover.
sew a cover for the Poang chair.
Sew new pillows

All of these projects were finally completed as part of the One Room Challenge in the fall of 2014.

Deal with the footstool done.
Renew the gallery wall. Done, December 2013: Gallery Wall Part Deux.

Back Hallway:

scrape popcorn off of ceiling (transferred to January 2015 House Project List)
paint. (transferred to January 2015 House Project List)

Stairwell:

Hang large mirror (transferred to January 2015 House Project List)
touch up paint on risers. (transferred to January 2015 House Project List)

Upstairs Hallway:

make and install screen. (transferred to January 2015 House Project List)
sew new curtains for window. (transferred to January 2015 House Project List)

Master Bedroom: 

Paint room.
Paint headboard wall with something stencillish.
Buy or make a new duvet cover.

all done, March 2014!

Back Entry:

Hang extra board w/hooks.

done. In fact, the whole place was purty'd up in November.

Laundry Room:

Re-hang curtain.


Whew! There's no way all of this can be done in one month! But I will do all that I can this month.

Project 27: The Small Drawers.

This one came about because I organized the top drawer of the white dresser.

These are the cards we use for card games, Uno, Skipbo and your generic decks, in both bridge and poker sizes. There are cribbage boards, too, of course (though we still need to teach the kids to play crib). These used to be the main items we kept in the top drawer of the white dresser. But we don't need them there any more.

I like to call this part of the organizing process the "shuffle" because essentially, all you're doing is shuffling your stuff around. But it isn't always a simple thing to do--especially when you are dealing with a very disorganized home. The organized people tell you to take those items to their new home and leave them there until you're ready to organize them. I think this is a good strategy in a situation like this where you're working on a small scale. And I was lucky I already had something to put them in.

But so often, especially when I am organizing with my Mom, the new stuff to be moved in has to mingle with old, not-yet-decluttered stuff and the inevitable chaos that ensues is immense, especially when you consider that this is happening all over the house.

Things sat like this in the living room for a very long time.

One of the reasons I kept putting off this easy project was that this is one of the last bits left over from homeschooling.

Things have gone well, though. One of my son's teachers told me that "whatever" I'd done, I must have "done it right" because my son was able to "get what he needed" in order to learn the material.

I am grateful to that teacher.

So, there was absolutely zero emotional charge to re-purposing this handy little drawer unit.

 

 

One of the things Aby taught in her Organizing Fundamentals course is that one likely needs to re-organize whenever there's a major change in one's life. As I have been dealing with closing the homeschooling chapter of our lives, I am grateful I am dealing with the stuff now, instead of years from now. It's a great feeling to be creating a house we can live in now, instead of living in a home full of stuff I'm afraid to face.

I'm linking to Jules at Pancakes and French Fries for the William Morris Project, because that's what this was, even though it's late.

Apologies

Some sort of stomach virus or something has taken me over. I haven't been able to do much of anything at all. Pain is a jealous master.

Project 26: Get Taxes Ready

Not really exciting.
Not really photogenic.
Not really blogworthy.

But really necessary.

Project 25: Mend the Cow Blanket

This one certainly qualifies as an Anti-Procrastination Project.

I have put this one off for more than five years. I know it's been at least five years, because we got our new Beagle puppy about three days before my nephew was born on Christmas Eve. My nephew turned five last Christmas Eve.

The puppy did what puppies do: he chewed through everything.

Back sometime in the late eighties, or early nineties, I got this blanket on a trip to New Orleans with a boyfriend I had just broken up with. (Have you ever done that? Go on a vacation you've planned and paid for with someone you broke up with?) I think he may have thought it was a trial separation. I knew I would never sleep with him under that blanket, so I bought it. Plus, it was in a restaurant, and I'd never been in a restaurant that sold home décor before (or since).

Plus, it was cool.

The blanket is woven and has a design on both sides, each the reverse of the other. A classmate in my Organizing Fundamentals course alerted me to the fact that this meant it would be best if I mended the blanket from both sides.

The procedure to fix it was essentially this.

Buy a new iron. Buy a new iron and ironing board holder. Buy another iron. Oh wait, that was this anti-procrastination project! Just goes to show, everything is related.

Sorry, back to mending the hole.

1. Trim loose threads and tidy up the hole.
2. Take a lint roller and remove as much dog hair and other debris as possible which has accumulated for five years around the hole.

3. Stitch around the hole on the sewing machine to prevent further unravelling.

4. Get some really outrageous fabric to cover the "patch." Choose a shape which is sympathetic to the blanket.

5. Cut out two.
6. Hem the raw edges of the patches.

(NB: I should have used a zig zag stitch here and not a straight stitch.)

I was so nervous about ironing on the iron-on material that I procrastinated these next steps for a full week.

7. Find some sort of flexible woven stuff to iron on. Cut out two patches slightly smaller than the fabric patches.

 

I trimmed this to get this:

 

 

8. Iron it onto the blanket. At the last minute I thought to put down a piece of paper underneath the hole. I didn't want the iron-on material to stick to the ironing board cover!

I'm glad I did, because it did stick to the paper--but lightly. It was easy to peel off.

9. Then, carefully stitch the patch to the patch. (Again, use a zig zag. Embrace the zig zagginess. Much better than curling edges which is what actually happened after I washed it.)

Repeat steps 8 and 9 for the other side.

Wash the blanket--for the first time in five years--and display proudly.

I am so glad that's done.
(Except for the zig zag. I have to go back and re-do that.)